Collectorz.com News connect

This is it, the last CLZ Newsletter for 2018, brought to you by CLZ Alwin.
We have a very busy month behind us, with most of the team members preparing the v19 for Windows releases and dealing with hundreds of customer support questions every day.

Luckily, things have quieted down a bit now and we’re already busy planning some great stuff for 2019!

A couple of weeks ago, our CLZ Cloud (and Music Connect) has been updated with 8 more fields and loan information. Today’s version 18.3 now supports the syncing of all these new fields and your loan information to the CLZ Cloud and your CLZ Music mobile app!

Added for syncing:

Sortname for composers

Original Release Date

Packaging

Media Condition

Vinyl Color

Vinyl Weight

Vinyl RPM

Disc Titles

Heads up: after updating to version 18.3, the software will automatically mark most of your albums as “changed”, to force the upload of your data for the new fields to the CLZ Cloud.

New versions of CLZ Music for iOS and Android will be available in the coming days to allow the new fields to be synced there too!

Fields that are now fully editable:

Media Condition (the old Condition field is now “Package/Sleeve Condition”)

Vinyl Color

Vinyl Weight

Vinyl RPM

Disc Title

But wait, that’s not all: All the above fields now also sync to and from the CLZ Cloud!

Secure HTTPS connections, for your security and privacy

As indicated in our GDPR email, we are updating our software and services, to be more secure and to better protect your privacy.

Starting with version 4.11 CLZ Music now uses secure HTTPS connections for all communications with our servers:

for logging in with your username and password

for syncing your data with CLZ Cloud

for sending your searches to Core.

To make this possible, we have created new secure “entry points” on our servers, that are only allowing secure HTTPS connections. The new CLZ Music app only communicates with those secure entry points.

For your privacy and security, we strongly recommend updating your app to v4.11.

A new sort option:

A couple of months ago we introduced new sort orders, including “Artist, then Year (Asc)” where it would sort the year ascending. By request, we’ve now added “Artist, then Year (Desc)” so you can also have your years in descending order. The regular “Asc.” and “Desc.” toggles for those two sort options will only affect the Artist sort order.

A couple of weeks ago, our CLZ Cloud (and Music Connect) has been updated with 8 more fields and loan information. Today’s version 18.4 now supports the syncing of all these new fields and your loan information to the CLZ Cloud and your CLZ Music mobile app!

Added for syncing:

Sortname for composers

Original Release Date

Packaging

Media Condition

Vinyl Color

Vinyl Weight

Vinyl RPM

Disc Titles

Heads up: after updating to version 18.4, the software will automatically mark most of your albums as “changed”, to force the upload of your data for the new fields to the CLZ Cloud.

CLZ Music for iOS and Android will be updated in the coming days to allow the new fields to be synced there too!

Import from Music Label:

This is CLZ Alwin, with your October 2017 CLZ news.
2018 is getting closer, so work has started on v18 for Windows (v18 for Mac will follow in 2018). Next to that, regular updates for all mobile apps and continuous improvements for the Connect editions:

With all the sharing features we’re building we’ve now added a way for you to set a default view for your friends so they can browse your collection the way you want them to.

To set a default view for your friends:
Go to your CLZ Cloud / Connect page, login at the top right and set the columns, sorting and folder view you wish your friends see when they browse your collection.

Once you’re happy with the setup, choose Settings from the “wrench” icon menu top right. Then click the blue button “Set current view as default view” and you’re done! Anyone viewing your collection for the first time will now get the view you’ve just set for them.

You can now quickly share your entire collection or one single item in your collection with anyone using the Share button at the top of your collection. You can share your collection or single item on Facebook, Twitter, via email or just copy a direct link using the Share icon top right.

Go to your cloud page, login at the top right, and use the Share icon at the top to begin:

Share entire collection

For your entire collection, make sure you’re on your Cloud / Connect page with all your items in view and then click the Share icon top right:

Share one single item

For one single item, click the item in your collection and then click the Share button at the top:

Even though it’s been summer vacation time for several CLZ team members, we’ve been able to push out several huge releases, the most popular of which (by far) was the new Alphabet Bar. But don’t forget the huge book cloud update and CLZ Barry 2.0!

These are the topics of today’s newsletter, discussing all July releases and what’s cooking at the CLZ HQ at this very moment:

Despite the current heat wave in the Netherlands, the work on all our cataloging solutions is continuing.
This is the June 2015 edition of the CLZ Newsletter, with full details on last month’s releases, plus a quick overview of What’s Cooking:

The first CLZ Newsletter of 2014! So let me (Alwin) start with this month’s biggest news: We hired two new web-developers!

Early this month, we welcomed Bart and Dion to the CLZ team. Both are still students which means they will be working with us for just 2 days a week now. If all goes well, they will complete their studies later this year and will then join Collectorz.com full time.

Bart and Dion have joined senior developer Robbert on a huge project : a complete rewrite of Connect. All five Connect web-applications will get a more modern look and a responsive design that will automatically adapt to all screen sizes: desktops, tablets and phones.
We expect to be working on this for at least the next 3 months. I will try post regular updates on Facebook with screen shots of our progress.

Hectic times here at the CLZ office in Amsterdam. We’ve completed some big releases and started on a couple of huge other projects. Some of which I will disclose in this newsletter (we’re back on Android!!), but others I have to keep quiet about for now.

Most of you have probably heard all about this new service in the February 2012 edition of the Collectorz.com Newsletter, but here’s a short summary.

In October 2009, we launched Collectorz.com Connect, our fully online software for cataloging and sharing your collections. By now, many new customers are opting for just Connect to catalog their books, movies, CDs, comics or video games.
On top of that, a lot of users of the desktop software for PC & Mac have added a Connect subscription, to share and manage their collection data online.

However, we are so proud of Connect, that we want even more desktop users to experience the joys of accessing and sharing their collection data online.
I mean, how cool is this!

Today, we have great news for our loyal Collectorz.com customers.
So don’t skip this blog post, it’s too important to miss. Here we go:

In July 2009, we launched Connect, our fully online cataloging and sharing software for movies, books, music, comics and video games. During the past 3 years, we have been continuously improving Connect, adding more features, improving performance and polishing the user interface.

By now, more and more new customers are opting for just Connect, using only the online software to catalog their collections.
On top of that, a lot of users of the desktop editions for PC & Mac, have added a Connect subscription, to share their collection list with friends and family and to manage their collection data from other computers and from mobile devices (e.g. their iPad).

However, we are so proud of Connect, that we want even more desktop users to enjoy Connect.
We want more users to experience the usefulness of accessing their database from anywhere, from any device and the joys of sharing their collection data online.

So we are going to make a big change (starting next week):

We will launch a new Connect subscription type, called Connect Sync & Share.
Sync & Share is a basic Connect edition, created for desktop users who just
want to sync their collection online and share it with friends, but wish to
keep using their desktop software to manage (add/edit) their database.
In short, Sync & Share is Connect without the adding and editing features.

Sync & Share will be FREE for PRO users of the *latest* desktop edition.
That’s right, FREE! If you own a PRO license for the latest version of our
desktop software you’re entitled to a FREE lifetime Sync & Share subscription!

In last year’s major upgrades for all Windows edition, we introduced the Find Cover feature. A simple way to find missing cover images using a Google Images search. Just point and click to add found images to your database entries.
This feature has proven to be very popular, so this week we added it to all Connect editions.

On June 28 one of our customers tweeted “@collectorz I am loving the Comic software and scanner. Cannot find in the instructions how to catalog without re-reading old issues ;-)”
This resulted in comments like ” I have that problem myself – though I’m not complaining about it” and “It must be an epidemic. I’m suffering that disease as well”.

Our home organizing software for CDs, DVDs, books, comics and video games comes in two flavors: Standard and Pro.
Apart from the obvious difference in price (Standard is half the price), how exactly do they compare in terms of features?

Are you procrastinating cataloging your DVDs and Blu-rays because you think it is way too much work? Well, don’t.
Let me share my experience cataloging our shelves when I finally decided to organize our own movie collection.

When I started on the task I did not know how many movies and series we had, nor how much time it would take me to list them all.
My set up: Movie Collector Pro for Windows on my Vaio laptop and the OPN-2001 laser scanner.